


a morning after (if we can hold on to the night)

by SaraJaye



Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Loss of Parent(s), Post-Battle, future past timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:02:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3632448
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SaraJaye/pseuds/SaraJaye
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's still nighttime, but the darkness has finally been lifted.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a morning after (if we can hold on to the night)

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt - Fire Emblem: Awakening, Severa/Kjelle: here comes the sun
> 
> Takes place in the Future Past timeline. The Morgans are twins because a) the game has you potentially fight them both and b) it's how I roll.

_It's over._ The words keep repeating in her mind, it's over, Grima's gone, everything's...well, almost everything's going to be okay, she thinks. Nothing can bring back all their parents, all the people killed by Risen or all the people they had to kill when they _became_ Risen.

_It won't bring back Morgan or Marc._ The two "babies" of their ragtag bunch of fighters, everyone had tried their best to protect them. But in the end it was Marc who gave his life to cover everyone's escape, and Morgan...maybe that's why she'd followed Grima in the end. Something inside her snapped when she lost her twin.

_I know I'd have gone crazy if it were me,_ Kjelle thought. She'd put on a brave face when her father died and when her mother left, she'd accepted the warning that she might not come home. She'd crawled into her dad's armor and slept that night, her mother's ring on a chain around her neck, only letting herself cry for a few minutes.

But no matter how much she prided herself on that bravery, she knew she could have just as easily broken down the way others did. Collapsing and falling ill for days like Noire, denying it like Inigo, shutting down all feelings like Gerome, crying her head off like Cynthia. She knows that no matter how strong her mother raised her to be, everything they've been through has hurt her as much as anyone else.

She still wears her mother's ring on the rustier chain. She wears her father's old gauntlets, big as they are on her. She remembers them laughing and smiling and talking about sunshine and puppies, debating whether or not to teach her to ride a horse like they did.

_Guess what, Mother, Father. I did learn to ride. You'd be so proud._

She hears footsteps behind her, Severa coming to sit down beside her. Quiet for once, she says nothing about Kjelle's sloppy untucked shirt or messy hair. Her own black pigtails aren't in the best shape, and she's damp with sweat as she leans against Kjelle's side.

"Hey."

"Hey yourself." She can't help but smile, this is the first time Severa's ever done something like this without fear as a motivator. "Couldn't sleep?"

"I kept expecting a Risen to pop out of nowhere." Severa laughs, a hollow sound. "It's really over. But..."

"They're not coming back, I know." Kjelle sighs, wrapping an arm around her. "Even Naga- _Lady Tiki's_ power can't bring back the dead." She's heard legends of an old staff that could do that, thousands of years ago. Only legends, but it doesn't matter since whatever the staff was is lost to history. "But we can't keep dwelling on that, we have to..." Severa's shoulders hitch slightly and Kjelle pulls her closer. "Hey, don't start crying on me."

"I-I'm not crying! Stupid..." Severa pulls closer, a hand tugging at Kjelle's rumpled shirt. "You don't have to give the same big pep talk Lucina did." But Kjelle feels moisture on her sleeve and her own eyes misting over, and they both go quiet.

Maybe seeing the other versions of their parents hurt more than it helped in the end. They helped win the fight, but it's just a painful reminder that the real Frederick and Sully and Kellam and Cordelia aren't coming back. They'll never see this world reborn and restored.

"They're watching us, though," she says aloud. Severa nods slightly against her shoulder, the hand on her shirt slipping down to lace her fingers with Kjelle's.

"It'll be like they're with us even if we can't see them." She smiles a tiny bit. "Daddy was always good at that."

"There you go." Kjelle pulls the other girl closer, smoothing one of her rumpled pigtails. Severa makes a soft contented noise, almost like a cat, relaxing against her, and Kjelle lets her eyes close a little.

_We made it. Mother, Father, we made it. We're going to be okay._ The night they thought would never end is over, and the first rays of light are peeking over the horizon.

It's never felt better to be alive.


End file.
